Chasing A Key
by littlescarletstarlet
Summary: It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching, and rarely discovered so many locks, not enough keys. The life of the Fixer has only been spiraling out of control. Every facet of her life pulls in another direction, and it is time to face them all. Olivia is the Fixer, and it's time she fixed herself.


Eyes flickered through the neatly organized drawers again as she stood a step away. The drawers were all pulled out before her, lining the length of the countertop like a row of open windows to the mix and match mundane objects of her everyday life. She did not rifle through them, but instead stood silently and allowed herself to observe. The compartments and sections held anything that she could be searching for, except the one thing that she was. Olivia's lips curled into a downward frown and her eyes narrowed; it had to be here somewhere. In all of her life, she had rarely, if ever, lost something beyond a momentary search. Olivia kept track of her things in the same way that she kept track of her work. Everything had its place, and it did not ever bleed over from one compartment to the next. At least, that's the way that things had been _before. _

She scanned from one side to the other and - _nothing. _The key was gone, and although she would usually dismiss such a small occurrence, it seemed to ebb at her attention incessantly since her realization of its disappearance the night before. Olivia had laid in bed and stared at the pale ceiling for hours, reviewing every possible misstep that could have led to the loss of her spare key. It was such a small thing to lose, but she would never misplace it - that would utterly defeat the purpose of a spare key. In the morning, she had been offered no clarity and even now, as she stood searching and poised to leave home, she was still unsure. A disgruntled sigh and a few steps later, she turned the only key she had left in the lock to her apartment and set off toward OPA.

The brief metro ride sent her stumbling through her memories, although an onlooker wouldn't know it. There was still a resonating recognition in residents of the District, her face was not one that could go totally unnoticed anymore. She wasn't sure how she felt about it, but she hadn't taken the time to examine that facet of her life yet. Most parts of her life were not something that she could bring herself to sort yet. She knew that it would be an undertaking and there were too many other pressing issues at hand. Fitz seeking reelection also brought her back in a way that she was unprepared for.

Before her life had changed, before she had made her defining decisions… _before. _Before it all, she had taken this same metro route to work - green line to red, red line to blue. She could have easily taken another form of transportation, but it gave her an escape, and now it was a sense of normalcy that Olivia needed desperately. She had met Huck between the red and blue lines, by an advertisement for Georgetown that had long since been replaced. All of her life was being replaced. She was no longer just a fixer, she was Olivia Pope, and she would forever be associated with Fitz. She was the daughter of the first Command, and involved with the second Command. Olivia Pope and Associates had always only meant her team: Huck, Quinn, Abby, Harrison. Now, it seemed that 'associates' was beginning to include a whole host of people that she was not sure that she was prepared for.

The stream of memories took her attention away from the quickly fleeing metro station; the easiest ones always came first. The thrill of fixing and finishing a case wold always be her favorite. The sense of success among her favorite colleagues would filter through the office, in and out of personal spaces and around their briefing table. It would always be Harrison who was the source of any sort of celebratory music, and always Abby to be the last stubborn participant in their quiet dance fest. The successes on the campaign trail were similar. The only moment she had ever seen Cyrus dance was when they had all but won Virginia, a battleground state. Some staffer had thought it a good idea to blast the room with 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered', and while they would normally receive a hasty exit, they had only been able to laugh. It was a relief. Fitz had spun her around the room and it was the only time she allowed herself to smile, to really smile, in front of the world. There were many more similar moments, and many other times that brought the smallest sense of warmth to her frame. But just like every other time, there were the memories that were not so easy, and those were the ones that sent her running away into her mind, fleeing to any place that was safe enough to ignore what bothered her.

There was the sinking feeling that always accompanied anything reminiscent of Defiance. Making the decisions that brought Defiance to life was not just a disappointment for letting down Fitz. It was much more than that. Defiance was a disappointment with herself, and a complete dishonor to the country that she had strived to keep running. She was a fixer, and that time she had fixed, but it was more akin to fixing a house made of straw with Elmer's glue and then expecting it to withstand a hurricane. She had participated in a solution that undermined everything she stood for, and therefore undermined herself. That pain was only rivaled by Fitz telling her that they were over. She had never expected it, although she had spoken of it many times. She had known it was always a possibility - it could even be a recommendation. For all intents and purposes, they needed to be over. But, it was also something so inconceivable and impossible that it had struck her to her core. Her hand tightened on the silver bar of the train as it allowed more passengers to enter. She steadied herself absently and teeth found her bottom lip, willing away the memories. The rest of her commute was focused on stilling her thoughts, as almost all of her nights had been as of late. She would reach a point that proved too painful to sort, and she would only be able to silence her thoughts then.

As the metro halted and the station was announced, Olivia took in a long breath and moved languidly toward the exit, taking care not to brush against the other passengers. She had seen far too much to trust such an invasion of personal space. Every tightly closed coat was concealing a weapon, and every heavy bag was a massively destructive explosive. It was best to keep her eyes down. She took the stairs quickly to the surface, the sunlight greeting her a bit harshly. Coming from the normalcy of the metro and its darkness into the bright sunlight was always a bit unwelcome. Jake's words rang in her head once more; '_Stand in the sun with me, Olivia'. _A slight shiver ran down her spine and she shook her head, setting off toward the office. Stand in the sun? Did that mean she had never been in the sun before? That all of her life was in the shadows? That didn't make sense. Just like the darkness of the metro, sometimes the shadows offered her comfort. Sometimes, they allowed her to be vulnerable where nobody else could see.

As she pushed open the heavy OPA door, the scene that she was confronted with stunned her. She stopped suddenly, her spine stiff with something between anxiety and curiosity. She recognized his frame from behind and could have been assured that it was him, but even if it wasn't, he turned for her, his icy blue eyes catching her own. "Fi-…" She cut herself off and squared her shoulders, realizing the audience quickly. "President Grant." The corners of her lips flickered upward into a familiar welcoming gesture, not anything like the broad smile she used to give him. "What can I do for you?" What _couldn't _she do for him? She could shut down a secret organization and put him in harm's way. She could fix his election to undermine the tenants of democracy and lie to a nation. But, oh, there were so many other things.

"Olivia. We have a problem." The response did not come from Fitz's lips, upon which her gaze was fixated. No, they came from Cyrus, who had stood just to Fitz's left, and who she hadn't noticed until now.


End file.
